Solved OS split across 2 drives, want to put all on a third

[Corwyn775]

Hi All,

I currently have windows 7 professional 64 bit installed and running fine originally installed only on a 60 GB Agility 3 SSD. I keep running out of disk space on this drive so I purchased a 240 GB PNY SSD and now I want to move my OS to the new drive.

When I tried to do this by making a system image with Windows Backup and Restore it told me that the OS was split across two physical drives, 55 GB on the Agility 3 SSD and about 20 GB on a WD 1TB drive.

I went ahead and made the image it recommended using only the options I couldn't uncheck (both the Agility and the WD 1TB drive data) thereby making a backup of the approximately 75 GB of combined data. I put this image on a seperate HDD, a WD Velociraptor 300GB.

I unplugged all of the drives except the new PNY 240GB drive (empty, but formatted) and the drive with the image (WD Velociraptor 300GB) and booted up with a Windows System Repair disk.

When it gave me the option to restore from an image everything seemed to be working fine until I got an error that said that I needed have the same number of drives and space as the original image contained.

Does this mean I have to have another drive installed so that the image can be spanned across two disks even though I have plenty of room on the new drive?

What I want to do ideally is take the OS from where it currently is (Spanned across the Agility SSD and the WD 1TB) and put it on the new drive (PNY 240GB SSD).

Welcoming any suggestions on how to accomplish this without having to reinstall windows. I have the windows 7 install disk, but I have a ton of installed software that is in storage right now and not easily accessable.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kaktussoft]

Can you attach the old disks, so set it up as it was? Boot from it afterwards and post "disk management" screenshot please.

 

[Corwyn775]

I can do that. I am at work away from the system at the moment though.

Any generic thoughts or is the disk image something that is needed before any advice could be given?

Thanks for such a quick response!

 

[Kaktussoft]

I can do that. I am at work away from the system at the moment though.

Any generic thoughts or is the disk image something that is needed before any advice could be given?

Thanks for such a quick response!

Old SSD is win7 files? What windows stuff contains the 1TB disk that also has to be imaged? Most likely the bootmgr and bootmenu only(?)

 

[Corwyn775]

I don't recall ever telling the system to put system files on the 1 TB drive and it wasn't part of the original installation at all so I don't know why there would be any system files there let alone 20 Gb of files needed to image the OS now and I don't know what those files would be. There isn't any hidden partitions I can see on the 1 TB drive and it wasn't labeled as a boot drive.

I may have told the system to put the documents folder on that drive at a later date, but I don't have 20 Gb in my documents folder. Its the 20 GB size of the files windows backup is telling me I need to image that is confusing me. Windows 7 shouldn't need 75 GB of total space for it's install, so why is it needing that much space now?

Thanks again so much for your thoughts and help!

 

[Kaktussoft]

Can you attach the old disks, so set it up as it was? Boot from it afterwards and post "disk management" screenshot please.

Can you post the screenshot please.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[Corwyn775]

Yes, no problem. I'll post that as soon as I am home and by the system. Thanks again!

 

[Kaktussoft]

60 GB Agility has all the win7 files as far as you know? My documents, my music and so on is also on that SSD? All installed programs are also on that SSD?

At least that's what you expected?

In how many hours do you post the screenshot?

 

[Corwyn775]

I am working for the next 10 hours at this point (2 jobs) so I won't be able to post until then. I have a feeling what is on the other drive is the documents and library folders.

I might try to clone the 60 GB drive to the new 240 GB SSD, expand the partition, and then migrate back the documents and library locations to the new 240 GB now system drive.

I'll have to look up a good cloning program.

 

[gregrocker]

You should have noticed when you made the image that it was forcing you to include the data drive, which is almost always because User folders have been moved there. The solution to this is to use another imaging program like Macrium - Image your system. This is the best choice anyways since Win7 imaging is so limited it may not restore to a different size drive at all.

However you can try using Win7 backup imaging if you first move the User shell folders which are now on the data drive back to C. User Folders - Restore Default Location - Windows 7 Forums. You can tell which ones are on the data drive by the icons which are customized for the User shell folders, and from the Location tab on each one's Properties box.

 

[Kaktussoft]

@Greg is right as usual. He gives the advice I want to give you as well. But only a DM will give us more info.

 

[Corwyn775]

I used Macrium and cloned the old SSD to the new one, then expanded the partition to include the whole drive. Wouldn't boot from the new SSD so I ran a repair with Windows Repair Disc. Everything seems to be working fine now. WEI storage score went from a 5.3 to a 7.9.

I looked into the files that are on the data drive and it turns out none of my user profiles or librarys are on that drive. In fact, nothing I could find connected to the OS at all was on that drive. Is there a program out there that scans a drive for system files and makes a list of them or anything like that?

Thanks to all for the great help thus far! If I can just figure out this system splitting thing now the system will be perfect.

Sorry for not getting the screenshot up yet, I didn't have enough time yet to get that to happen and now I am back at work again.

 

[Kaktussoft]

How can you logon to the new SDD if user profiles are missing?

How many partitions were on OLD SSD? I mean did you clone all the prartitions or only 1? If you skipped some partitions... what is on these partitions?

Is the 1TB drive still connected?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Take a look in "disk manager". All Volumes are listed and have the correct drive letter?

 

[Corwyn775]

Sorry I wasn't very clear in my description before!

I cloned the entire drive which consisted of two partitions: A 100 MB System partition and a 59 GB partition that housed the rest of the files including the OS.

When I looked into where the system files were after installing the new SSD I found that all the expected user and library files were on the new SSD that I had cloned the old SSD to. Everything I can think of to look for in terms of a system file is located on the new SSD ( C: ).

I still have the 1TB drive attached. I have not tried booting without the 1TB drive attached, that would be a good experiment to run. The 1 TB drive is still listed as having 20 GB of data that Windows Backup and Recovery thinks it needs to have a system image.

All volumes were listed and had the correct drive letter in disk manager.

 

[Kaktussoft]

So what you did is actually: Clone OLD to NEW SSD. Just a copy of everything. The NEW SSD has another disksignature and the partitions are larger and not starting on same sector.

Did you boot WITHOUT the old SSD attached? It fails.... because wrong disk signature in bootmenu. Startup Repair did fix that. You ran Startup Repair when old SSD wasn't attached?

If OLD SSD was still attached to system..... there's a big chance C drive is still the old C drive.

It all looks fine now!! Please post screenshot of Disk Management as asked before.
What is NOT working fine now???? You cloned correctly, so all should be the same.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I went ahead and made the image it recommended using only the options I couldn't uncheck (both the Agility and the WD 1TB drive data) thereby making a backup of the approximately 75 GB of combined data.

What couldn't you uncheck? C-partition on old SSD and 1TB partition couldn't be unchecked. Could you uncheck System Reserved????

 

[Corwyn775]

I disconnected the old SSD when I tried booting and left it disconnected when I ran the repair.

The system runs fine with the new SSD installed now and the old SSD in a box on the shelf.

I am not sure if all of the partitions were selected on the old SSD during my image attempts, but the entire contents of the main partition was checked and couldn't be unchecked as the size of the data being backed up from the old SSD was the size of the used space on the drive.

The only thing that is wrong now is that I am concerned that there are system files on the 1TB Data drive because it is still saying that it needs to use 20 GB of data from it in order to make a system image.

I will definately post the screen capture of disc managment after work today. So sorry for the delay in that!

 

[Kaktussoft]

AFAIK Windows7 built-in image backup let you backup any volume you wish. But you MUST backup (so is NOT uncheckable): The win7 volume (volume with C:\Windows), and the bootmanager volume (volume that is marked ACTIVE, has the bootmgr file and bootmenu).

I think the bootmanager and bootmenu is on 1TB disk!!??

Take your time and have a nice day. Don't forget to post the screenshot later.

 

[gregrocker]

Please post a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image.

I would keep data and User folders on C until you start getting tight on space, then move the larger files to data drive to link via Libraries. I have this with my oversize video files that won't upload to Skydrive, put them in a separate folder named "Oversize Videos" on data drive then rightlick it to link to Video library. That covers my entire oversize. Your mileage may vary.

Of course you can also move User folders or copy an entire User folder to data drive to rightclick link it to Library - Include a Folder - Windows 7 Forums
and then Library - Set Save Folder - Windows 7 Help Forums.

But if you're not short of space I'd enjoy the speed increase all around on the SSD, the best upgrade one can get for Win7 apart from a Core i5 or if a gamer i7.